#STATES

I'm writing this on Wednesday the 13th because if I had written it any sooner I probably would have had to stop because I was overcome with such violent waves of emotion I wouldn't have been able to finish it without crying.

When it was time to get up at 5:30, Chris was up and out of bed immediately and trying to hurry us out of bed too. Poor Hailey and Chris couldn't catch a break from Cahill this weekend... I showered and then headed to breakfast. My room was pretty much the first group there, so we got first pickings. Jill had some trouble cutting her waffle, so Cahill suggested she use a hunting knife similar to those that will soon be allowed on airplanes. Breakfast was an adventure in and of itself.

We checked out of the hotel and headed to Monroe-Woodbury High School. That building is beautiful. It's huge, and has wide hallways, and many floors, and nice bathrooms. I wish I went there.

We headed to our room and planted ourselves firmly there. Just kidding, we had tests to take! Lindsey and I freaked out about Astronomy until it was time to take it. It was pretty tough, but we did a little better than expected. These kids at #states mean business.

I went straight from Astronomy to Robot Arm with Jill. We got three out of four points for the quiz on the robot, which is great considering my sister built it....and it didn't work so those were the only points we got. It was a blast working with Jill, though.

Alyssa and I did Triple E after I left Robot Arm. We did worse than we had hoped for, but there were a bunch of annoying weirdos in the room that threw us off of our groove. We'll get 'em next year.

I had quite a lunch break, just chilling in the room with the team. At 2:00 I took Dynamic Planet with Lindsey. We thought that we DESTROYED the test, and we did do well, but not nearly as well as we thought. 21/51 isn't the worst it could have been.

After I finished that, I was done for the day. We were all pretty beat, so we dragged ourselves back to the room to clean it up. We went to the awards ceremony (not nearly as nice as the one at Kellenberg) and just sat in the gym for an hour waiting for something to happen. We filmed the first half of a Harlem Shake video...

When they announced the top six teams in each event, we weren't all that surprised that Wantagh didn't win any...but next year we will!

This is a picture of us pretending we made it to nationals. I love everyone.

We got on the bus and drove to a Wendy's for a quick bite to eat before going home. We watched The Breakfast Club, ran over a skunk, and Chris' bowels were okay.

Sam, Kenny, and I went to get Ralph's before heading home. I think we just didn't want to go home and accept that #states was over.